


To the Dust We Settle

by desreelee123



Category: Bates Motel (2013)
Genre: Angst, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Half-Sibling Incest, Heavy Angst, M/M, Male Slash, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Non-Explicit Sex, Parent/Child Incest, Sibling Incest, Sibling Love, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 15:47:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8452285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desreelee123/pseuds/desreelee123
Summary: Dylan and Norman and life after Norma.





	

I

            “Would you like some more coffee honey?” asks Norman _Norma_  wearing a periwinkle blue floral bathrobe that certainly does not belong to him.

            “No mom,” he says it like this is the most normal thing ever, not that normal has ever been a word used to describe their family. (Chaos has been sewn into the very sinew of their being, replicated over and over in each birthing of a new cell, forever entwined in their genetic code along with their penchant for disaster.) “I’ve got to get to work soon so I can’t stay long.”

            He stands up from the old chair of their dining table and ambles over to Norman? Norma? These days it doesn’t really matter. (But oh does it matter to Dylan. It matters so, so much. Sometimes, he thinks that maybe this is the destiny Norma wanted for the both of them, a twisted life constituting of the facade of small-town mundanity intertwined with the occasional carnage.) Dylan plants a kiss on his _her_ lips. It’s a chaste one but it is equally as intimate as any other kiss in its own right. (Scandalous even as it is evidently shared by two brothers.)

            “Don’t stay out too long okay?” Norman calls out with a doting tone, another thing that does not belong to him as Dylan sails out the front door, feeling quite suffocated by the weight of his life. The drug trade rebounded quickly enough in White Pine Bay after Romero was forcibly removed from his position as Sheriff, rebuilding itself with the ashes or, in this town’s case, the blood of its predecessors. New, young upstarts started to fill the vacuum left by the town’s finest and Romero’s place was filled with an even more cynical and ruthless counterpart. And Dylan, predictably, got roped back into the trade once more.

            His last ditch attempt at a life, Seattle, Emma, consequently didn’t pan out. It was futile, really, if he thinks about it because to be honest running away from oneself never, ever works.

            Destruction and misery follows him around like a dog with a scent and somewhere along the line, he’s convinced himself that this is the life that he was destined for, the legacy Norma left him, to take over her place as the other half of Norman’s whole.

II

Drug runs, money laundering, turf wars, and the dirty, saccharine scent of contraband chemicals and illegally grown plants riddle Dylan’s day. He serves as the right-hand person of one of the biggest drug operations in White Pine Bay, with the smell of blood and burning oil serving as a twisted substitute of what the average Joe would call as the workplace air freshener.

Sometimes, he and his boss, a lanky, redheaded man with the eyes of an arctic wolf would go clubbing during after-hours, have a few drinks, and maybe even a few lap dances. (Not that Dylan ever engages in such obscenities. Those things have long since lost their novelty to him, partly because, well, he’s grown older and partly because he can’t ever stop thinking of the azure hue of Norman’s eyes whenever a woman, or a man for that matter, tries to engage him in such unwholesome acts.)

_I love you Dylan._

Two halves of a whole.

Dylan wonders if devotion really is supposed to be this all-consuming.

III

On most days, it is Norma that Dylan sees behind those beautiful baby blues. It is Norma’s voice that wakes Dylan during the day and lulls him to sleep during the night. Norma rules them, his brother and Dylan both, with such ferocity that her influence follows them even in death and Dylan knows, oh does he know, that this is not right.

At times, he gets scared of the notion that Norman, the real Norman, is gone, forever hidden away from Dylan’s reach, from Dylan’s touch forever. But his little brother, the sweet little boy who rode behind him in his motorcycle all those years ago, the same boy who he played tag with when they were little and the world was a much simpler place, always comes back just long enough to remind him that he’s there, twisting and coiling under the smooth polished porcelain surface of a mock-adolescent who never quite grew past his mother's shadow to ever become a man, made insane by the evils around him. (There is not a day that goes by where Dylan doesn’t ever think about the what ifs of life—what if he never left him, what if he didn’t go to Seattle that day, what if he just fought a little _harder?_ )

That same little boy though, during the brief times that he breaks the surface of Norma just enough to remind Dylan that this person whom he lives with is still his brother, the same brother he came back for, never fails to remind him of his shortcomings as a sibling.

_Dylan, where’s mom?_

_At the groceries. We ran out of milk._

IV

            _I don’t want to go back to that place Dylan. Please don’t make me go back to that place._

_Dylan, don’t make him go back to that place._

            There is a dynamic between Norman and Norma.

            It took a while for Dylan to understand, to fully grasp, but now he gets it. He really, really does. Norma protects Norman from the worst of the world, from things that Dylan himself can’t protect him from and how absolutely screwed up is that? But normal never really fit any of them and he acknowledges that this is their very own version of a family curse, to live a life in a perpetual state of mock-normalcy but never really achieving it, like a boy trying to pick an apple too far up a tree.

  
            _I have an obligation to my brother Emma. Please, you must understand._

When Norma kisses him with Norman’s lips, it’s passionate, fiery. She knows what to do, knows which buttons to push to make Dylan unravel and scream out her name. Norma’s electric and Dylan can’t help but burn in indignant flame under her.

            _It’s okay Dylan. I understand._

When it’s Norman, the affair is much more muted. His brother’s touches are softer, more tentative and most of the time, Dylan takes the lead. It’s always Dylan who spreads his legs and aligns his hips just so that they both meet in the middle. He burns with a different kind of flame when it’s Norman. The guilt is much more magnified after and if Dylan were pious, he would’ve flagellated himself until his blood ran like the river of his shame, laid out bare for the world to see.

V

            Dylan goes through his days with almost practiced clockwork nowadays, almost with the precise mechanisms of a gun. (He’s Norma’s gun. He’s Norman’s gun. He will go to the ends of the Earth for them, whether he’s willing to or not. He's learned a long time ago that he doesn't really get a say in those matters anymore, not that he ever had one.) It’s quite easy to do when the days start blurring together into a hazy fog of monochromatic hues and crashing waves. The upside is that there is no ambiguity in his life now. Everything is well laid out in the dust for him. He will carry Norman _Norma_ on his shoulders along with the weight of the world around him until his back breaks and his bones turn to nothing but ashes and then, only then, will he be allowed peace somewhere where his brother and his mother are happy and sane and _normal._

            (He never visits Norma’s grave for fear that she might call out to him from the dust.)

VI

            “Would you like some soufflé Dylan?” Norman, not Norma, no, offers when Dylan gets home one rainy night soaking wet. He smells of mud and dust and blood and he desperately needs a hot shower and a warm bed. They had to off a mid-ranking member today who was found to be selling secrets to the rival family. “Mother made some this dinner and we had some leftovers.”

            _No, Norman I’m tired. I want to go to sleep. Good night._

_No thanks Norman. Let’s just watch a movie together._

_No thank you Norman. I just had to off someone today and am not in the mood for desert._

_No Norman I don’t want any because you’re sick and you’re disgusting and you’re filthy and I’m in love with you._

_No Norman I’d like to have you instead. I want you back. I want the sweet, perfectly sane Norman back. I want the boy who rode behind me in my motorcycle all those years ago._

“Sure,” he bites out with a forced smile. “I’ll go change first.”

            “Great,” his brother hums innocently as he opens the fridge door to retrieve the leftover soufflé, “I’ll heat it up for you.”

VII

            They go to the beach at dusk when the place is already mostly empty save for the occasional vagrant. He and Norman walk along the shore with bare feet, treading through the freezing waters, hands almost touching as they feel the cold rush up their legs. The two brothers walk in a long stretch of silence, too afraid to speak for once they do, the momentary peace will be broken and they will be forced to face the reality that has become _them_ once more.

            Finally, when the sun has already set and the water is already dark and they’re too far away from where they started and, incidentally, where they left their shoes ( _Don’t worry we’ll buy new ones Norman.)_ only then does one of them, Norman, speak.

            “I’m sorry Dylan,” his voice is soft, meek and it almost breaks Dylan’s heart to hear his brother so weak.

            “It’s okay Norman,” he answers with his eyes turned away from his brother’s. That apology could’ve meant a thousand things, could’ve been meant for a thousand reasons. But Dylan Massett is not a fool, nor is he stupid. (The town talks, as expected, whispering to each other in hushed tones whenever Dylan's nearby, not caring if he notices. They tell each other tales of strewn-together half-truths and mangled rumors but they ultimately leave him and his brother alone, possibly out of fear or disgust. And that, is enough for Dylan.)

            He knows exactly what his brother meant.

            Later that night, Norman, clad in cotton pajamas, crawls up Dylan’s bed and snuggles at his back, his breath making the hairs on the nape of his blonde brother’s neck tingle with attention. Dylan’s eyes snap open with the mild feeling of arousal and he knows this so wrong but all thought seems to escape him when his brother’s hand glides down the front of his boxers, wiry digits fiddling with the half-formed bulge of Dylan’s desire.

            _I love you Dylan._

_I love you too Norman._

VIII

            “Do you want some more coffee Dylan?” Norman asks with the lilting, forever-singsong voice of Norma as she lays out Dylan’s breakfast in front of him.

            “Yeah mom that would be nice.”

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Sorry if the characters were a little bit OOC. This is how I saw how their relationship, Norman and Dylan's, would turns out in the end because okay, let's admit it, whatever Dylan does he will always come back to his family because that's just who he is and he is such a good guy and he's just undergone so much character development that I kind of felt enamored to his character enough to try and write him. Well, sound off on the comments below if you thought this fic sucked or if you want to show your appreciation if you thought it was good! Please take note that this is my first fic in this fandom and my first time writing slash so rev it on on the constructive criticism! Aaaand don't forget...kudos!


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